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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28357728">to love &amp; be loved</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/error_cascade/pseuds/error_cascade'>error_cascade</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Picard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bad Decisions, F/F, Gen, Introspection, Mental Health Issues, Therapy, Wherein we try and fail to predict what sort of cultural view the Federation would take towards</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:47:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,428</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28357728</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/error_cascade/pseuds/error_cascade</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Three stories from Raffi's life.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Agnes Jurati &amp; Raffi Musiker, Raffi Musiker &amp; Benjamin Sisko, Raffi Musiker/Original Female Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Star Trek Secret Santa 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>to love &amp; be loved</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spinifex/gifts">Spinifex</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Content Note: The mixing of sex, alcohol, and bad decisions is referenced in this story. I don't think it merits a dubcon tag but I do think it merits a heads up.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was this <em>thing</em> Raffi's therapist recommended. She said that we tend to view mental ailments as a result of a singular issue, when that was not the case. This isn't unique to the so-called mental conditions; physical ailments are always the result of multiple convergent factors, many of them largely outside of our control. Whether you break a bone running down a corridor depends on the gravity levels, the angle, your physical ability to catch yourself (or not), your species' biological attributes, and so on. But because the bone is easier to fix, we don't place as much value on all these could-have-happeneds. </p>
<p>So her therapist recommended that she looks at her alcoholism, even at the collapse of her family, and traces its lineage. To assemble the history in whatever way she preferred; a narrative, an artwork, a quasi-scientific graph, a mission report. Raffi tried and failed. </p>
<p>She ended up with a start chart of the Milky way, <em>no, too big</em>, zooming into a few classic earth constellations. She grabbed her stylus and pulled it across the screen, trying to connect disparate factors. </p>
<p>Childhood??? --- &gt; my son --- &gt; my husband left me </p>
<p>kicked out of starfleet --- &gt; Starfleet = War?</p>
<p>Starfleet = JL? -- &gt; betrayal?</p>
<p>She couldn't talk about any of it. She brought in a star chart with a handful of annotations explaining her biggest failures and regrets. She could barely explain why she wrote them down without crying, her hand itching for the phantom weight of a glass, even filled with water. So mapping the lineage of her alcoholism &amp; her life became their goal. The implication being that you cannot fight a monster you cannot name. </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Raffi's therapist was an Andorian woman with deep blue skin, almost an indigo tone. She was tall and friendly in a way that was sometimes clean and professional and sometimes cute and childish. On Earth, she took the name of Julia for some of her clients. Her actual name was J''ul/sth, but more humans were able to pronounce the vowels in Julia, so Julia it is. Julia was a fiercely intellectual woman and would cater her services to different conceptions of what it means to be mentally unwell. She was familiar with centuries of earth, Betazoid, and Andorian theories of mental illness, many of which weren't even addressed within the medical model preferred by Starfleet. Even in her darkest hours, Raffi could barely think a negative thought about Julia; her competence, her expertise was... illuminating.</p>
<p>For someone who had been judged by her own spouse as incapable, for someone who struggled to take care of her hair or to sweep a floor, it was intoxicating to have this brilliant woman focused solely on her for an hour each week. Julia never condescended. She had this assured confidence that Raffi was an interesting person, still worth talking to. It was the sort of thing that could give you hope, if you let yourself believe. It was also the sort of thing Raffi fucked up. </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Julia was not a believer in abstinence from alcohol as the definition as sobriety. She pointed to it as an outdated Earth concept that had far too long of a shelf life for the evidence behind it. She encouraged Raffi to define her own boundaries about what substance use or lack thereof meant. And Raffi remembered when she could go to a bar for the music and the sensory experience of one or three Saurian brandies without the all consuming urge, twisting under her skin, telling her to escape from her life. And that was their goal. But Raffi didn't tell Julia which bar. She went to a local bar, one that straddled the line between bar and pub and played live music, an eclectic mix of whoever was willing to play for cheap, across genres, cultures, and species. Tonight was a young human teen, not a singer. They were remixing Vulcan instrumental music, very peaceful and precise, with bright and happy sounds. It was almost gauche, the way the emotions would intercut through the melodies. The sort of thing that art and music journals would comment on, asking if it was subversion or a childish rebellion, a blending of cultures or a mocking. The sort of thing that goes good with brandy. </p>
<p>And it was good. It was good for an hour, slowly nursing two drinks. It was good until she saw <em>her</em>, walking in kind of tipsy, skin flushed a warm blue. Surrounded by friends, bar hopping. On a youthful adventure. She felt ashamed, in that moment. That this woman half her age was supposed to be giving her advice, pretending to listen to her problems. That she could never be one of those friends, all so young, with a world to explore. </p>
<p>When Julia caught her eye, she walked over to say hello. And when Julia's friends asked her who she was, Raffi called herself a friend; not a client, not a patient. She doesn't know what it says that Julia didn't correct her; probably that outing a client was a breach of professional ethics. Raffi has more brandy, to wash away the deception, the feeling of herself as lecherous and pathetic and weak. </p>
<p>Raffi wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, entangled in long blue limbs. For a moment, this brings her happiness. The idea that she was wanted, that the woman who knew so much about her made love to her. </p>
<p>It was only for a moment. </p>
<p>She shifted out of the bed, cautiously. She left to the sound of gentle snoring and the feeling of breeze and slick on her public hair. </p>
<p>She didn't go back to therapy, after that. </p>
<p>--</p>
<p>She met Benjamin Sisko, Emissary to the Prophets and legendary war hero, at a Starfleet Intelligence conference. It was near the end of her career; there wasn't much longer she could hold onto the idea of the person she used to be, of whatever Starfleet begged from her. There were always threats on the horizon and she had become numb to it all. But Sisko interested her. </p>
<p>In a way, his life was quite possibly her worst nightmare. The idea of being essentially forced into a religion because, <em>by the way</em>, you are now an important figure in our religion and its impact on interstellar politics... what a nightmare. That wasn't mentioning being pulled out of linear time by powerful aliens worshipped as gods. At least - </p>
<p>At least when Q had showed up that one time, JL and him had a bit of a rapport. </p>
<p>But he didn't seem unhappy. She was used to seeing the haunted faces at conferences, as people who were raised in peace and sent out to explore ended up soldiers for war. Starfleet Intelligence was different, it attracted a more cynical bunch. The sort who wouldn't show it. But Sisko seemed... happy. He didn't look like a man who was kidnapped in order to appease powerful beings, or even someone straining under a PR lie. He looked like he had transcended beyond it all. And yeah, she wanted a piece of that. </p>
<p>But she couldn't ask for it. It was a crazy request. It was her imprinting her desires and pains onto a stranger's life. </p>
<p>It surprised her, after the conference, when he approached her and asked if she knew any Bajorans. </p>
<p>“Just the one.” Something in her felt compelled to add, “he wasn't religious.” </p>
<p>“So I'll be the first one to surprise you like this.” </p>
<p>And he grabbed her by the ear, what the shit, and said, in a low voice. “Your pagh is strong.” </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>After Agnes Jurati confessed to murdering a man, on their ship, the scientist had cried, and asked her, “Why are you still being so nice to me?” There were a lot of answers Raffi did not give. She did not say that she had a son and a husband who wouldn't let her love them and her desire to care for someone was apparently stronger than the realization that they were a semi-brainwashed murderer. She did not say that at this point, she didn't feel like she could judge anyone, morally speaking. Or that maybe this was pragmatism, keeping your friends close and your potential enemies closer. Or that at the very least, there wasn't much she could do to fuck up Agnes'  life anymore, which is a marked improvement from the rest of her relationships. </p>
<p>Instead, she let herself feel soft. “Because, sometimes we make mistakes. And even if we can't fix them, I think we should still let ourselves love and be loved.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>To my 2020 Star Trek Secret Santa recipient, I hope you found something to enjoy in this very tangled mess of headcanons.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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